Sony VAIO S Review Discussion

This 15.5-inch version of Sony's multimedia notebook features a top-of-the line 1080p IPS display and is less than an inch thin. Keep reading for our full review.

Read the full content of this Article: Sony VAIO S Review

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A few comments:

If the display is a good as it looks, I'm surprised to see a less than 4 star overall rating. There are, by current standards, reasonable upgrade options with the potential to install an SSD and, I suspect, the potential for higher capacity RAM while more powerful CPU and GPU are factory options. So I wouldn't condemn the range on account of the cheapest model. However, I have reservations about the appropriateness of a 1920 x 1080 resolution display for people with less than 20/20 reading vision until I'm confident that Windows display scaling works perfectly in all circumstances.

I can see one RAM module in the bottom. Are there two slots there or is one slot somewhere inaccessible or RAM soldered onto the mainboard?

Regarding the battery capacity, please quote the battery voltage (11.1V) as well as the current rating as the latter alone is meaningless. Or just give the Watt-hours (49Whr), which is the number that matters.

John

 

gt 640m LE running on 1080p? That's going to be too taxing to the GPU for gaming even if it was bios modded to the speeds of a ddr3 gt 650m. Should be good as a multimedia computer and productivity computer because of its FULLHD screen. But for gaming and 1080p screen, it needs at least a GTX Class 1 lvl card for great gaming experience.

 

Every single review of the Vaio S I've ever read complains about flexibility in the hinge or lid. But I've never read a single owner report of the hinge or lid failing. People may not like the tactile feel of the flexibility, but Sony maintains it's a deliberate choice to improve durability in a lightweight machine (that which doesn't bend, breaks), and I suspect there's something to that. If the hinge and lid were actually fragile, I'd expect to see copious owner reports of failures.

All in all, this machine offers an almost unmatched combination of performance and portability in the 15" segment. The one and only model I know that outperforms it on that combination of performance and portability is the Retina MacBook Pro, but that machine gives up an optical drive and costs twice as much.

On my Sony Vaio F2 (1080p and 540M), I play games at 1366x768 but edit MS Word documents and read webpages at 1080p. Just because it can't game at 1080p doesn't mean there's not a very good reason for a 1080p screen...particularly when a laptop isn't being marketed as a dedicated gaming machine (and this device is most certainly not).

EDIT: And certain less-graphic-intensive games run just fine at 1080p. I play Mass Effect 3 at 1366x768 but Torchlight 2 is smooth when displaying at a native 1080p.

 

anyone has any idea of how hard or how easy it would be to upgrade the hdd to an ssd?
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Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

It should be very easy. The drive is accessible. You can either clone the existing one or do a clean installation (probably better given the mention of excessive bloatware in the review).

John

 

thanks John

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

 

I agree. It's well-known that with some Sony laptops, specifically the Z series and S series, that Sony purposely made the notebooks have flex on the lid to absorb damage instead of resisting it. It feels cheap to most people, but is actually a very good design feature. Kudos to Sony for that one.

 

That 1080p LCD is a huge selling point for the S15. That and the fact it's very light for a 15" notebook. I don't care much for the touch pad either on the S13 I have now and the fan on the S13 is on all the time.

 

Possible to readout the panel model via HWinfo?
The fact that clevo reseller can swap 95 gamut panel into the upcoming ASUS U500 make me wonder if all these IPS is still proprietary implementation.

 

Nice review Charles, and thanks to the gracious owner as well The 15" 1080p screen on the VAIO S is the same as that found on the HP Envy 15, it suffers the same orange is red problem that got a lot of attention earlier in the year. HP promised they would issue a software fix for it, but that proved to be wishful thinking as the "fix" really didn't do much for owners, apparently it's pretty much all down to the display. Strange that nothing is being done to try and source the IPS from another manufacturer, it's certainly not an inherent problem with IPS.

Outside of that I think the VAIO S is a great option for a thin and light 15" that's more useful than all those 15" Ultrabooks with underpowered processors, no optical drive, and no hope of upgrading -- many of them weigh the same as the VAIO S anyway. I kind of agree with those referencing the flexibility of the screen, the VAIO Z looks like gumby if you bend the screen, it's scary, but apparently doesn't cause issues for owners in the long run.

 

Agreed 1080p and still being a lightweight machine is nearly impossible to find!
I'm looking to upgrade from my 2.5 year old 1080p E Series!

 

That's a good perspective but my experience says lids should be rigid. Electronics aren't meant to bend. They [Sony] may have designed the lid to bend in a certain way to prevent damage but nonetheless I can't imagine them not preferring to make it rigid if possible.

Thanks Andrew! I'm in full agreement about the Ultrabooks. The HP ENVY Sleekbook 6t I reviewed in July ... I was not pleased with and it wasn't much cheaper than this VAIO S base configuration:
HP ENVY Sleekbook 6z Review: Is Being Thin Enough?

As a matter of fact I haven't been pleased with nearly all of the Ultrabooks I've reviewed ...

I think this is an LG screen and yeah, it has the orange issue. I wonder how much could be done using a display calibration tool like DataColor Spyder.

 

I liked the X1 Carbon and Air I've had the chance to review, though they're on the more pricey side. I think an Ultrabook could work well for someone like me who doesn't need a ton of processing power or battery life, but then again I don't like the upgrade limitations an Ultrabook presents and prefer the low price my X220 offered.

 

Rigidity was important when panels didn't take much bending to break, but nowadays most display panels take a lot of flex before they die.

If flexy is thinner, lighter, and more durable than rigid, I don't see why I would want rigid.

 

Is RAID configurable as a controller mode option in the BIOS? Is it possible to put 2 9.5mm HDD's in the 15" VAIO S and run them in RAID 0?

 

It's a pity that Sony doesn't offer a touchscreen option on this model

 

see i really dont get this... who wants a screen smeared with finger prints, but maybe thats just me.

Iv owned an S15 for about 2 months now and it really is a fantastic laptop. can max out most games i play (mostly ME3 and GW2) at 900-1080p and still maintain 30+ fps at standard clocks. even after gaming for a few hours the computer is still cool enough to keep on my lap

 

Apparently, smearing with fingerprints doesn't seem to be a problem as touchscreen tablets & smartphones are selling by the tens of millions. Have you tried Windows 8 on a touchscreen laptop? I have. Once you do there's no going back to a non-touch model. The laptops we have had thus far feel instantly outdated since you cannot touch the screen. Win 8 metro interface is built for touch.

 

phones are fine since they are so small, just wipe it on a sleeve and its clean. tablets I still have to clean before i watch a movie or anything on em. idk call me a critic but il have to try a touchscreen laptop extensively before im convinced.

 

I find I can't see fingerprints on my Duo 11's screen once it's on; it's only when it's powered down does it look dirty. When the screen is actually displaying something, the vibrant colors and bright whites cut right through a thin layer of skin oil like it's not there at all. Dimmer or lower-quality screens might be a different matter.

 

That's very true, especially if the screen is very bright. That said, I've been using touch screen tablet PCs for years and, honestly, other than for browsing/scrolling I think the novelty of touchscreens wears off at around the same time as you realize it is far more fatiguing to reach out to the screen than to navigate via mouse or touchpad on the same plane as the keyboard. With a tablet, you hold the "touchpad" in between your hands and the screen is on the same plane as your fingers; not so a laptop that sits on a surface, or even on your lap. Good luck to Microsoft and all early adopters, but my experience tells me that touch screens and keyboards combined are an ergonomic disaster, especially for doing "real work."

Regarding Sony's flexible screens, I've owned 11 of them over the past 3 years and never once had one bend or break. They do just what they are meant to do: keep weight down and prevent lid and hinge damage that heavier, more rigid screen/lids can cause. You'll have to look far and wide to find a Sony Z owner with complaints about the flexible screen - or the industry-leading lightness of their incredibly powerful laptops. The same would go for the S15. Just don't hold the laptop open by the corner of the screen, lol.

 

I'm a litigation attorney (so I'd like to think that I do "real work") and I've been using my Vaio Duo 11 as my main machine for two weeks, including in depositions. It works just fine and I find the touchscreen a pleasant addition. I think its unusual form factor makes the touchscreen easier to use than on a traditional laptop, though.

Exactly.

 

My earlier experience on tablet PCs that had full size keyboards which were far from the touch screen is no substitute for your actual experience on the Duo 11, especially since it was designed to be used as a touch screen model with the screen close to and tilted to be easy to reach while typing. I stand corrected.

 

It only works so long as you've got smaller hands is the key point. I suspect that's why I've had such a different experience than some reviewers. I suspect I'm smaller and finer-fingered than a lot of the reviewers who called the keyboard unbearable. For women and small-statured men, it totally works great. If you played rugby or American football in high school, it ain't gonna work.

If they released a Duo 13 with a full-size keyboard but the same form factor, I think a lot more people would "get it" with the benefits of that form factor.

 

I have the same question...